Stranded V2
by SplendidArc
Summary: revision and better action than the first!


Hey guys! Here is the long awaited first chapter of Stranded.

Now yes I did do a earlier seven chapters of Stranded, but that was some time ago when I was first starting off on Fanfiction. I thought it would be better that I would redo the story after I had gained a bit of experience writing.

That time is now, and this version is gonna have more action, more drama, more SCY FY! And a lot better romance.

I had originally wanted to write the story a bit after the Human Covenant war, but with the release of Halo 4 I felt like I was screwing over all of Halo History. Now that I know Halo4's story, that's not gonna happen.

Now then, here is Stranded! 2.0!

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Slan-Garued sat down on his Gravity chair onboard the Covenant CCS Battlecruiser _Hallowed Gift,_ his mandibles clicking together with excitement as he saw the strange dimension known as Slip-Space. He had recently been tasked with leading an expeditionary fleet into unknown territory in search of the traitorous San-Shyum, or as the humans call them, the Prophets.

After the Human Covenant War, the San-Shyum seeing that they had not only lost the war, but were also being hunted down by the Sangeheli Warriors and Human Military forces, they had fled the known parts of the Galaxy, seeking refuge and hiding in remote uncharted corners of the Milky Way.

The Leaders of both the humans and the Covenant Separatists had come together to discuss how best to deal with the possible threat of another war in the future with fanatical religious alien terrorists.

After long hours of grumbling and arguing, it had finally been decided to send out expeditionary fleets into the unknown to search for the San Shyum.

Unfortunately, to prevent a riot or a rebellion from the civilian Government of the Humans, the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists had decided to keep that on the down low, and instead stated that these expeditionary missions were being conducted because of the need for new planets for colonial homes, resources, military defenses, and to basically restore both the UNSC and the Covenant Separatist back to their prewar status.

Which in the end wasn't really a lie, but just something to satisfy the public.

Slan had been tasked with leading a small group of vessels- three including the _Hallowed Gift- _in an expedition into the uncharted areas of space. And since the San Shyum were still out there, they would be the first to enter a system.

As he looked about the bridge, he saw the excited expressions of his crew. The simple motions of a finger, the twitching of the eye, all were things that told the Shipmaster what his crew was thinking, and he couldn't blame them for being eager for battle.

One of the crew, a young and eager Sangeheli by the name of Yua-Destri, turned to the Shipmaster from his terminal. "Shipmaster! Our destination is three minutes out!"

Slan clicked his Mandibles in anticipation. "Good, and how are our human allies faring?"

"They also cry out for battle, but in their own peculiar ways." The helmsman replied.

Slan began to click his mandibles again- the equivalent of a human smile- when he just remembered something.

"What is it Shipmaster?"

The Shipmaster stood up as his chair floated down to the deck from its perch. "Where is Sergeant Bennings!?"

The entire room seemed to slow down to a crawl as they remembered who Bennings was.

The rookie Helmsman hesitated for a moment, before going back and checking the terminal cameras.

"By the gods- SHIPMASTER THE TRICKSTER HAS ESCAPED!"

Slan closed his eyes and sighed. "Sound the alarm."

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In the hangar bay…

The sizzle of plasma being swung through the air could be heard in the hangar, the common sounds of alien speech and alien technology had quieted in the bay and most of the inhabitants had left their posts to bear witness of a sight of true skill.

The crowd of aliens had gathered around and encircled a large area of which two dueling combatants fought. Before the war ended, duels were not common in the covenant, as their races were unified by a singular religion that few had problems with. But as the war began to draw to a close, more and more duels had begun appearing within the Sangeheli race.

Even after the war, some warriors see others as unfit to lead.

"TODAY, RESD SAYUM, YOUR WEAK MINDED LEADERSHIP ENDS!"

Resd Sayum did not move as his opponent, a Sangeheli in white colored armor, charged at him with a roar, his sword already in motion to cleave Resd in two.

With movement more fluid than water and fast enough that if you blinked, you'd miss it, Resd reacted as his opponent were mere feet from him. His sword arm lashed out and blocked the others slice. He reached out and grabbed the other by his chest armor, and flung him over his shoulder and slammed him into the ground.

His opponent cried out in pain as he hit the deck, literally. The force from the impact caused his shields to overload and blink out of existence, but Resd wasn't done. He then grabbed the Sangeheli by his hooved foot, and-spinning a little to gain momentum- chucked the Warrior far from him, his armor clattering on the floor.

The Sangeheli groaned, and attempted to get up, but a hooved foot quickly slammed down on his hand, breaking it. The Sangeheli cried out with pain, to say the least.

Resd looked down at his opponent with no pity, but said nothing as he lifted his foot off of the Sangeheli's hand.

The young inexperience warriors glared up at Resd with a hate so passionate, it could have melted ice.

The two looked at each other before the young fool spoke once more, "Well? What do you wait for? The Ship Master's approval?"

Resd said nothing, which seemed to only aggravate the warrior even more.

"If you were fit to lead, you would have killed me before met flesh met the ground. WHY DO YOU LEAD US TO BATTLE ONLY FOR US TO COWER BACK AND-"

"Save your breath," the Sangeheli Warrior laid there stunned. "It will save you the energy you need to make it to the nearest healing chamber." And with that the great Field Marshall Resd Sayum turned and left the scene, the crowd parting around him as he made his way out of the hangar.

As the doors opened for him to continue on, he heard the raging roar of his opponent, cursing his him and all he lived for.

The doors then automatically closed behind Resd, abruptly shutting off the rage of the Sangeheli, and Resd continued on back towards his quarters. Many races paused and bowed as he passed by, whether out of fear or respect, he knew not.

"_This is the ShipMaster to all brave warriors aboard this vessel." _Resd and passing aliens stopped as they listened to what the ShipMaster had to say. "_The human known as Sergeant Bennings has escaped his quarters and is now on the loose aboard the ship. Return him to his quarters immediately or report it to the nearest CAPABLE Sangeheli or Jiralihanae. Swift hands be to you all."_

Resd released a sigh, while some Unggoy fled in terror, screaming down the corridor past him.

Bennings was a prankster, but to the Covenant he was a trickster. No human vessel ever wanted him on their ship, and he had had several transfers, the most recent was to the _Hallowed Gift_. At first, none of the Sangeheli knew why he was not welcome on human vessels.

Then they figured out why.

The first reported sighting of his work a Sangeheli covered with purple fake blood, the Sangeheli then freaked out and immediately went to the medical ward. When he was told by th Uragok that there was nothing wrong with him, he sought out Bennings and was about to strangle him before trip chords that were set up caught him by the ankles he was then doused with water from above that came from the sewage collection plants in the ship.

The Sangeheli was sick for over a month, and pissed to say the least.

Over the course of months, Bennings used his pranks to drive the populace wild. Tricking people into unconsciousness, sticking people to walls with a substance that the victims did not want to know about, to even causing a Huragok to go nuts and almost kill a Sangeheli Officer.

Since then, has been locked in his quarters. But it didn't matter how heavy the lock was, he always escaped, and whenever he did so all hell would break loose.

Resd was one of the few Sangeheli who managed to not get pranked, but that number was slowly dropping each time Bennings escaped. The Shipmaster had requested a transfer, but the decision was not decided as of yet, and has since decided to wait for Commands response.

Resd continued on his way, even some of the passing Jiralihanae moved in groups of four at least, but while Resd knew numbers would help, they could not stay protected forever. Resd never quite figured out how Bennings was able to construct such contraptions, what he did know is that Bennings had received a PhD in Mechanical engineering as well as a Technician and Physics.

How someone like that even was put into the military was a mystery, but for Resd, the mystery lied with why he hasn't been kicked out of the UNSC yet.

Resd shook his head as he walked down the corridor. Resd understood humans more than anyone else in the Covenant, even the Arbiter may not be as intellectual about them as Resd was. He had studied with human monks in the Himalayas, trekked the Earth's surface with the Chinese, and had learned several different techniques of martial arts from them as well.

Most Sangeheli would frown upon such learning's from humans, but Resd has never lost a match with any Sangeheli. That is proof enough that the teachings from the humans paid off in some form or another.

He had run into Bennings before, as a matter of fact he was usually the catching the human in his own traps, so when he heard the alarms he wasn't surprised, only dismayed that he would have to do this all over again.

This was going to be a long day.

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Captain Wells looked across the nav board as the UNSC _Solar Flare_ exited Slipspace along with the other ships following suit. He now had begun pulling information from the ships scanners and analyzing the data, which as it came in was looking promising. They had jumped into the Binary Star system known as the Olivan System, with four major planets and a tight ring of asteroids encircling the two stars.

They had jumped close to the third planet of the system, which although was designated to be in the Goldilocks zone, held no visible life signatures on the surface. Even though there were vast oceans, covering about 92% of the planets atmosphere, the water shocked scientists as they found that it was pure mineral water, almost like it had been filtered by something and then dumped onto the planet. This left the scientific community shock, and they had sent a probe to investigate before sending in a Recon group.

"Captain, the _Hallowed Gift _and _Chicago _are raising comms, sir." Said his comms officer, one Lieutenant Remirez, interrupting the Captain's thoughts.

"Set up a channel for us, let's see what we're getting into here, shall we?" the Captian replied, turning to his Comms officer.

"Yes sir."

"And pull it up on screen. Lets see what they've got to say." He added.

The Captain turned to the holo screen monitor on the bridge and awaited for the channel to be established.

The UNSC _Solar Flare_ was the last of the Halcyon-class battle cruisers to be constructed after the war, primarily due to the fact that the Marathon –class battle cruisers were becoming more and more common place in the UNSC military.

The main killer of all Halcyons was the fact that they were hard to maintain, and required a lot of work and effort to keep in service. While no doubt they were great ships in a fight to have, they were considered far outdated in technology, and required too much maintenance to keep going. The newer Marathon-class battle cruisers were outfitted with more up to date technology than the Halcyon's and were also a lot easier to maintain. Their only limitation was that they were usually in command of Fleet Admirals and high ranking personnel.

But that was quickly changing.

The Captain frowned as he thought about this. He had served on this ship for a few years now, and he and the crew had grown somewhat attached to the vessel. All Halcyons were to be decommissioned in 2562, it was only a few years before that.

Wells quickly shoved such thoughts out of his mind, he had other things to think of.

Like for instance, the holo screen popping up with the other vessels Captains.

The screen was split in half, one side showing the face of Shipmaster Slan-Garued, while on the other showed a young, stern, man by the name of Captain Gomez. He looked to be in his twenties, but with 26th century technology, one could never be too sure of another's age.

The Sangeheli spoke first, "ShipMasters, it is good to see we all made it through the void of Slip-space in one piece."

Wells nodded his head in agreement, "Good thing too. How's the status on our passengers?"

Captian Gomez puffed out his chest, "Were all good and accounted for on my end sir!" said the inexperienced Captian.

"Same here." Stated Wells, but when he looked to Slan, his expression darkened slightly.

"The Sangeheli of the Der'a criche are all intact, but your cursed trickster has escaped from his quarters and has now begun to make a fool of us all!" the Sangeheli grew so mad he slammed his fist down on the control monitors.

Wells sighed. He figured as much. Bennings was too valuable to the Recon group to let go of, being the fact he was the only one who knew more about Forerunner tech than most Marines should. Course that didn't mean he was smarter than Proffesor Allos, but he was good to have in Forerunner contact situations.

The draw back was that he had a PHD in Mechanical Engineering. And he loved to put some of that to excessive use.

"If you're having this much trouble, just have one of the lower ranking split-lips guard him in his cell, shouldn't be that hard." Stated Gomez.

"Captian," called one of Wells' officers. "Were picking up strange readings from behind the planet."

The Captain looked out the view in the bridge, expecting to see some strange but well occurring phenomena, something like the aurora lights almost.

What he saw however, he wasn't expecting.

"Gentlemen, I do believe we have a good idea where the drone went."

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Aaron slapped a fresh clip into his MA5D Assault rifle and chambered a bullet, before firing a burst of fire into the dummy target. The bullets cut through the thin paper flip up board of a Jiralihane wielding a Spiker rifle. Aaron pulled away his gun, and saw three holes in the paper, two in the chest, one in the head.

He grinned as he shot the other paper boards, each one a different Covenant species, with the same three bullet holes again and again, two in the chest, one in the head.

As he was about to fire on a board depicting an Unngoy running away in terror, when he heard the familiar click of an empty magazine. He pulled back the charging handle and ejected the clip, tossing it behind him in a pile of other empty clips.

He loaded another Mag and began firing off more rounds into the target boards again, only to be interrupted by an cloaked opponent, who snatched away his rifle from his hands before he could blink.

Aaron's reflexes kicked in and he tackled the assailant, only to be lifted up off the invisible enemy and held there, not by the neck, but by the shoulder.

"I am not your enemy, Aaron Wells. But you do pick a good fight,"

Aaron was startled a bit by the voice, "We'll have to preserve a time for private combat lessons in the future."

The being in front of him de-cloaked, to reveal a well-built Sangeheli Spec-Ops Warrior.

"What's up, Meru?" called Aaron mockingly.

The Sangeheli Spec-Ops carefully placed him down in a kind manner. "Only to tell you that perhaps you should consider joining the Allied Corps, as you humans call it."

Aaron snorted and yanked his gun out of the Spec-Ops' hands, "No thanks, I play better with people of my own species, no offense."

The Sangeheli sighed as Aaron continued practicing his shots in the range, he downed another paper board Unngoy with two body shots and one to the head.

"My squad could use a warrior like yourself." Stated Meru, as the stubborn human continued firing in the range.

"My answer is the same as ever: no thanks." He pulled out his empty clip, and began pulling out a second one when Meru's hand grabbed his.

Aaron looked up at the Spec-Ops, "I wouldn't be asking if it I didn't see something in you to show for it."

The ODST grimaced.

The Allied Corps, in reference to the Allied Nations of the second World War in the early 20th century, was created a few years after the end of the Human-Covenant War, in hopes of improving tactical efficiency and firepower among the individual squads of the allied factions in the Milky Way Galaxy. It was actually first proposed by Spartan-117, shortly after his return to Earth in2557 in hopes of strengthening relations between the Covenant and UNSC.

The result was mixed success with the program as some would have expected: while the combat and tactical efficiency of the multiple species working together in different combat situations did improve drastically, the overall morale towards working with other races for humans was not very good, though the humans were, most of the time, were willing to put aside such differences and work together.

The Corps has been widely publicized as the only branch of the military that was really connected with the other Governments, and has received mixed reviews about its purpose.

Aaron shook off the Spec-Ops hand, "NOT interested!" he shouted, and then returned to focusing on the range.

Meru sighed, and then whipped out both of his Plasma rifles and blasted the boards, a storm of blue plasma bolts peppering the paper army.

Within minutes, the paper army had been decimated; some had been set on fire by the plasma while others had burnt holes in them, or had disintegrated completely.

Aaron lowered his assault rifle; behind his helmet he was stunned. Not at how quickly he took down the paper targets, but that he would just nonchalantly gun down all of HIS targets.

He turned to the Spec-Ops Sangeheli, but remained silent behind the helmet.

"Now that I have your full attention, we can talk like sane beings." Said the Spec-Ops elite as he holstered his Plasma Rifles to his sides.

"Listen, I told you again and again the same damn thing, are all you Elites this damn persistent?" he pointed a accusing finger at the Spec-Ops helmet.

The Sangeheli sighed, pushing down the anger welling up inside of him for being called an Elite. "No, I just simply cannot understand your insistence to fight with only humans."

The ODST simply walked over to a nearby bench in the white range as he began to field-strip his weapon and check it for any broken components inside. "I don't want to discuss that with you or anyone else, ok?! That's none of your business."

The Sangeheli stood there for a moment, motionless as if pondering his next reply. "Perhaps it isn't my place to ask, but I still can't see any other reason than you being… what do you call them?"

"Racists?" he pulled the charging bolt out of the weapon.

"Yes."

"Well I'm not."

"You don't show it very well."

"Yeah, well don't judge a book by its cover."

"I wasn't judging."

Aaron slapped a fresh clip into his rebuilt weapon, and checked to make sure there was no bullet already in the chamber. Finding none, he turned his attention back to Meru.

"What do you want? You keep asking me stupid questions and I can't help but think that you just want to piss me off."

The Sangeheli sat down next to the ODST on the bench, "I want to know what happened that caused you to distance yourself from 'aliens' but not to the point of rescuing a Sangeheli Officer from certain death."

The ODST lowered his head, "He was about to get smashed, and he was a soldier that's still alive helping his people."

"But that wasn't the real reason was it."

The ODST lashed out. "Whats your point Hinge-head?!"

"I don't think you saved him because he was a soldier, but for a different reason."

"Are you fucking kidding me!? You think that I was actually falling head over heels for a alien that I didn't even fucking know!"

"I didn't say that."

The ODST Groaned and lolled his head in his hands, tired of the conversation.

"I read your file Sergeant," the ODST stopped moving.

"What really happened to your mother?"

"Didn't you read the file?"

"Yes, but I don't believe a Nuclear explosion would be the cause of her death when no Nuclear structures or weapons were nearby at the time."

The ODST cringed.

"What really happened that day Sergeant."

The ODST held his breath, and sighed. "I don't want to talk about it. Simple as that."

The alien Spec Ops warrior, seeing as it would get no answers, simply turned and left quietly, the door sliding between them on his way out. The ODST breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the range, unaware of the events about to unfold.

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Ok so my first chapter may have a bit more drama in it than I had originally anticipated. Sorry for the long haitus, but I had a lot of family problems that I needed to take care of , such as divorce. Needless to say, this has caused me to not spend any time writing stories, thus perhaps to some of you to think I am dead. Which is not true.

In any case I would also like to state that the Republic and confrontation with the Empire wont happen for a few more chapters but bear with me, and keep watching out for any other of my updates. (:


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